Manus seeks $4B valuation in new $500M fundraise as it resumes independent ops
TechCrunch Ram Iyer
Manus is trying to raise $500M at a $4B valuation after resuming life as an independent company. It also sounds like Hong Kong IPO prep is already on the table.
Based on reporting by TechCrunch, Ram Iyer — read the original for the full story.
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Manus is back to fundraising mode, and the number is big even by AI-startup standards: $500 million at a $4 billion valuation, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Chinese startup had earlier been pushed into a messy split from Meta, after a planned deal with the American company was blocked in China. Now that Manus says it has resumed independent operations, it is reportedly lining up backers again. The Journal, citing anonymous sources, said potential investors include IDG Capital, Boyu Capital, Contemporary Amperex Technology, and existing supporters Tencent, HSG and Zhenfund.
There’s another layer to the story too. Manus is said to be thinking about a restructuring move that would prepare it for an IPO in Hong Kong. That would be a sharp turn for a company that only recently had to unwind a major acquisition plan and buy back shares with help from early investors and backers, at a valuation of about $2 billion.
Manus went viral last year after a demo of its AI agent. It later relocated staff to Singapore in mid-2025, then announced a $2 billion acquisition deal with Meta that December. At that point, the company was said to be bringing in more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue. But Beijing’s concerns about talent leaving for the West, plus worries over export controls and foreign investment rules, killed the deal. The company then told users in August they would need to export and back up their own data because it had to delete data created after Meta’s acquisition to comply with regulatory requirements in certain places. Manus says its founding team is still in charge.
The product pitch is broad: chatbot, vibe-coding tools, app and website builders, design and presentation tools, video generation, and a browser assistant. In other words, it is chasing the same “build anything” promise as a growing crowd of AI shops. The difference is that Manus now has to prove it can do that without leaning on a giant merger story to carry the brand.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
The cleanest read here is that Manus wants the glow of a hypergrowth AI company without the mess of being owned by one. That’s very on-brand for the era: first the acquisition, then the unwind, then the IPO whisper. Regulators killed the romance, so now the startup gets to date the capital markets instead.
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